There was a 'chat' feature introduced, similar to gchat, where any users that are online could talk to one another. At the very least, it would be nice to see who is actually logged in (maybe this already exists and I don't know about it).

Great suggestion. I am not sure if we can add the chat feature. But we definitely can add a feature to show you who is online (and if you want don't want people to know you would be able to turn this feature off in your profile settings). We will try to add this feature soon. Thanks for the suggestion.

We have added a "What's Going On?" box to the bottom of the main forum page that shows you who's online, forum statistics, etc. Hopefully this is sort of what you were looking for. The chat feature will have to wait for now.